The late 20th century saw great movement in the philosophy of language, often critical of the fathers of the subject-Gottlieb Frege and Bertrand Russell-but sometimes supportive of (or even defensive about) the work of the fathers. Howard Wettstein's sympathies lie with the critics. But he says that they have often misconceived their critical project, treating it in ways that are technically focused and that miss the deeper implications of their revolutionary challenge. Wettstein argues that Wittgenstein-a figure with whom the critics (...) of Frege and Russell are typically unsympathetic-laid the foundation for much of what is really revolutionary in this late 20th century movement. The subject itself should be of great interest, since philosophy of language has functioned as a kind of foundation for much of 20th century philosophy. But in fact it remains a subject for specialists, since the ideas are difficult and the mode of presentation is often fairly technical. In this book, Wettstein brings the non-specialist into the conversation (especially in early chapters); he also reconceives the debate in a way that avoids technical formulation. The Magic Prism is intended for professional philosophers, graduate students, and upper division undergraduates. (shrink)

The majority of Dutch physicians feel pressure when dealing with a request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. This study aimed to explore the content of this pressure as experienced by general practitioners. We conducted semistructured in-depth interviews with 15 Dutch GPs, focusing on actual cases. The interviews were transcribed and analysed with use of the framework method. Six categories of pressure GPs experienced in dealing with EAS requests were revealed: emotional blackmail, control and direction by others, doubts about fulfilling the (...) criteria, counterpressure by patient’s relatives, time pressure around referred patients and organisational pressure. We conclude that the pressure can be attributable to the patient–physician relationship and/or the relationship between the physician and the patient’s relative, the inherent complexity of the decision itself and the circumstances under which the decision has to be made. To prevent physicians to cross their personal boundaries in dealing with EAS request all these different sources of pressure will have to be taken into account. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how, by developing apparatus that has roots in Russell's own early work, it is possible to vindicate a version of his notorious "multiple relation" theory of judgment by formally reducing it to a plausible representationalist theory. Various adequacy conditions on such a reductive vindication are introduced and motivated. The theories in question are then axiomatized, and bridge principles are provided to effect the desired reduction. Finally, the reduction is shown to be a (...) vindication in virtue of meeting all of the aforementioned adequacy conditions. (shrink)

The Substitution Anomaly is the failure of intuitively coreferential expressions of the corresponding forms “that S” and “the proposition that S” to be intersubstitutable salva veritate under certain ‘selective’ attitudinal verbs that grammatically accept both sorts of terms as complements. The Substitution Anomaly poses a direct threat to the basic assumptions of Millianism, which predict the interchangeability of “that S” and “the proposition that S”. Jeffrey King has argued persuasively that the most plausible Millian solution is to treat the selective (...) attitudinal verbs as lexically ambiguous , having distinct meanings associated with the different sorts of complement terms. In opposition this approach, I argue that there are independent reasons for maintaining the univocality of these verbs and that this can be done while accommodating the Substitution Anomaly and without sacrificing the transparency of the relevant attitude ascriptions. In particular, I show how, by employing an extended version of Edward Zalta’s system of intensional logic for abstract objects, one can construct for a regimented fragment ℜ of English containing the relevant vocabulary a semantical theory ℑ which (a) treats ℜ’s selective attitudinal verbs as univocal, (b) regards genuine terms as occurring transparently under such verbs in sentences of ℜ, and yet (c) predicts the occurrence of the Substitution Anomaly in ℜ. (shrink)

This paper articulates a formal theory of belief incorporating three key theses: (1) belief is a dyadic relation between an agent and a property; (2) this property is not the belief's truth condition (i.e., the intuitively self-ascribed property which the agent must exemplify for the belief to be true) but is instead a certain abstract property (a "thought-content") which contains a way of thinking of that truth condition; (3) for an agent a to have a belief "about" such-and-such items it (...) is necessary that a possesses a language of thought, $M_{a}$ , and that a (is disposed as one who) inwardly affirms a sentence of $M_{a}$ in which there are terms that denote those objects. Employing an extended version of E. Zalta's system ILAO, the proffered theory locates thought-contents within a typed hierarchy of "senses" and their "modes of presentation", the provisional definitions of which (suppressing complications added later to accommodate the contents of beliefs about beliefs) are as follows. A mode of presentation of e is a ternary relation of the sort [λxyz z is a name in $M_{y}$ that denotes x, and $D_{e}yz$ ] in which $D_{e}$ is an e-determiner - a relation between agents and their mental expressions imposing a syntactico-semantic condition sufficient for such an expression to denote e therein. A sense of an entity e is an abstract property that "contains" a mode of presentation $R_{e}$ of e by dint of encoding its property-reduct [λx(∃y)(∃z) $R_{e}xyz$ ]. In particular, a thought-content is a sense T of an ordinary first-order property P containing a mode of presentation whose P-determiner $D_{P}$ is such that, for any y and z, $D_{P}yz$ entails that z is a λ-abstract [λv S] of $M_{y}$ in which S is a sentence whose non-logical parts stand in appropriate semantic relations to the constituents of T's (some of which may themselves be senses). Where $I_{a}$ is agent a's dedicated self-demonstrative and |T| is the mode of presentation contained in a thought-content T, the belief relation itself is then characterized as obtaining between a and T iff a( is disposed as one who) inwardly affirms the substitution instance $S(I_{a}/v)$ of a sentence S in $M_{a}$ such that |T|(P, a, [λv S]). The aforementioned "constituents" and "appropriate semantic relations" are formally characterized so as to permit a system of canonical descriptions for thought-contents of arbitrary complexity. These canonical descriptions are then employed to chart the nature and interrelations of belief de re, de dicto and de se and to identify the source of opacity in belief ascription. (shrink)

This article reviews the Dutch societal debate on euthanasia/assisted suicide in dementia cases, specifically Alzheimer's disease. It discusses the ethical and practical dilemmas created by euthanasia requests in advance directives and the related inconsistencies in the Dutch legal regulations regarding euthanasia/assisted suicide. After an initial focus on euthanasia in advanced dementia, the actual debate concentrates on making euthanasia/assisted suicide possible in the very early stages of dementia. A review of the few known cases of assisted suicide of people with so-called (...) early dementia raises the question why requests for euthanasia/assisted suicide from patients in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease are virtually non-existent. In response to this question two explanations are offered. It is concluded that, in addition to a moral discussion on the limits of anticipatory choices, there is an urgent need to develop research into the patient's perspective with regard to medical treatment and care-giving in dementia, including end-of-life care. (shrink)

Resumo Não há dúvida que tanto Kant como Hegel viram os seus respectivos trabalhos, como contribuições para aquilo que consideravam ser a “metafísica”. No entanto, a autora argumenta, que isto só deve ser compreendido, tendo presente, as concepções de metafísica de cada um dos autores. A autora, começando pela distinção implícita entre metafísica geral e metafísica especial na Crítica da Razão Pura, argumenta que Kant, Fichte, Schelling e Hegel comprometeram-se com uma investigação que, até essa altura, era do domínio da (...) metafísica geral. A autora, concentrando-se na noção de sistema de razão pura, tal como aludido na Crítica da Razão Pura, mostra, que os sucessores de Kant, interpretaram erroneamente a distinção kantiana entre crítica e sistema, o que permitiu elaborarem um sistema completo de razão pura, contrário àquilo que era intenção de Kant. Palavras-chave : Fichte, Hegel, idealismo alemão, Kant, metafísica, sistemaThere is no doubt that both Kant and Hegel saw their work as contributions to what they considered metaphysics proper. Yet what they meant by this, I argue, can only be understood by taking into account their own conception of metaphysics. Starting from Kant’s implicit distinction between general metaphysics and special metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason, I argue that Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel engaged in the investigation that used to be carried out in general metaphysics. Focusing on the notion of a system of pure reason intimated in the Critique of Pure Reason, I show, moreover, that Kant’s successors, while misinterpreting the Kantian distinction between critique and system, elaborated a method that made it possible to produce a complete system of pure reason, albeit one that differed from the system Kant had in mind. Keywords : Fichte, german idealism, Hegel, Kant, metaphysics, system. (shrink)

The effects of natural selection as a process in natural populations differs from ''survival of the fittest'' as it was formulated by Darwin in his ''Origin of Species''. The environment of a population exists of continuous changing conditions, which are heterogeneous in space. During its life each individual successively meets with differing conditions. During these confrontations the individual may appear to be ''unfit'' or ''unlucky'' and may die. If it survives it will meet the following conditions to which it is (...) ''tested'' anew, a.s.o. Hence, many individuals being less fit under certain conditions will survive and reproduce, because they did not meet a deadly moment. Therefore, being ''fit'' only refers to special prevalent conditions. In each generation the individuals thus being ''unfit'' will be eliminated together with the ''unlucky'' ones. All other individuals will survive and reproduce, notwithstanding their properties.Hence, natural selection results in the ''non-survival of the non-fit'' rather than in ''survival of the fittest'', because being ''fit'' simply means ''having survived and reproduced'', whereas being ''unfit'' can be connected with many kinds of properties and environmental conditions, e.g. being killed by a predator. Only after many generations (hundreds or even thousands) the effect of eventually dominating properties of the survivors may result in a set of properties suggesting an overall ''survival of the fittest''. This was what Darwin wanted to explain as he was mainly interested in evolutionary processes. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungWährend eines Abendessens in einem amerikanischen Restaurant wurde eine Gruppe von christlichen Ethikern, von denen einige Lutheraner waren, von einer jungen Frau angesprochen. Als sie hörte, welchen Beruf die Gruppe ausübte, antwortete sie: »Ich bin eine Lutheranerin – daher habe ich zu christlicher Ethik nichts zu sagen.« Dieser Artikel versucht herauszufinden, in welcher Hinsicht die Frau Recht gehabt haben könnte. Ich argumentiere dafür, dass zu dem Bereich des »Ethischen« zumindest drei Charakteristika gehören: Universalität, Normativität, und ein Verweis auf einen Begriff (...) des höchsten Gutes . Anschließend wird dafür argumentiert, dass eine der Konsequenzen aus Luthers Verweis auf Gott als höchstes Gut darin besteht, dass der sogenannte politische Gebrauch des Gesetzes zugleich ausgeprägt ethisch und christlich ist. Sein christliches Element besteht jedoch weniger in der Bestimmung derjenigen Werte, deren Realisierung angestrebt werden sollen, also im Feld der normativen Ethik, da das Gesetz in seiner politischen Interpretation allen Menschen, Gläubigen und Nicht-Gläubigen gleichermaßen, bekannt ist und auf alle angewandet werden kann. Der Beitrag des Christentums für die Ethik liegt vielmehr auf zwei anderen Ebenen: zum einen auf einer metaethischen Ebene ; und zum zweiten, aufgrund von Luthers Betonung der menschlichen Freiheit als Konsequenz der Versöhnung, auf der Ebene der Realisation des Guten. Abschließend wird argumentiert, dass Luthers theologischer Gebrauch des Gesetzes ebenso wie seine Lehre von der menschlichen Freiheit kaum als Ethik begriffen werden können, da die Charakteristika der Universalität und der Normativität fehlen. Einige mögen dies als eine Schwäche ansehen, aber die Kritik könnte auch in die entgegengesetzte Richtung gewendet werden: denn für Luther gehört mehr zum guten Leben als Normativität und Universalität allein.SummaryWhile having dinner in an American restaurant, a group of Christian ethicists, some of whom were Lutherans, were addressed by a woman. Upon hearing the profession of the group, she replied, “Well, I'm a Lutheran, so I don't know anything about Christian Ethics.” This article intends to explore in what sense the woman might have been correct. In order to do this, I argue that the realm of “the ethical” comprises at least three characteristics: universalisability, prescriptivity, and a reference to a conception of the highest good . After this, it is argued that, as a consequence of Luther's reference to God as the highest good, the so-called political use of the law can be seen as strongly ethical and Christian at the same time. The Christian element lies, however, not so much in the designation of what values ought to be pursued, i. e., in the field of normative ethics, since the law in its political interpretation may be known by, and is applicable, to all people, believers and nonbelievers alike. Rather, the contribution of Christianity to ethics lies on two other levels of ethics: first, on the level of metaethics ; and, second, because of Luther's stress on human freedom as a consequence of salvation, on the level of the realisation of the good. Finally, it is argued that Luther's theological use of the law as well as his doctrine of human freedom can hardly be conceived as ethics, due to the absence of the characteristics of universalisability and prescriptivity. By some, this may be considered as a flaw, but the criticism might also go in the other direction: to Luther, there is more to the good life than prescriptivity and universalisability alone. (shrink)

An argument is developed at some length to show that any semantical theory which treats superficially nonperformative sentences as being governed by performative prefaces at some level of underlying structure must either leave those sentences semantically uninterpreted or assign them the wrong truth-conditions. Several possible escapes from this dilemma are examined; it is tentatively concluded that such hypotheses as the Ross-Lakoff-Sadock “Performative Analysis” should be rejected despite their attractions.

This paper shows in detail how the formal semiotic of M. J. Cresswell [6] may be extended to provide an account of indirect question clauses in English. The resulting account is compared at various points with the theory recently propounded by Karttunen [12] and is argued to have two major advantages over the latter in that (i) it accommodates the manifest teleological relativity of ‘who’-clauses, and (ii) it avoids the need for categorial segregation of sentence-taking verbs from wh-clause-taking verbs while (...) offering a uniform explanation of various apparent semantic differences between them. (shrink)

Articles on the relevance of Islam and a comparative look with European philosophy in the contemporary world.

This excellent work defends the radical nature of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology from those who want to turn it into a kind of realism. The influence of such "revisionists" "is so strong at present that the historical Husserl threatens to vanish from sight completely". Husserl, de Boer insists, eventually defined consciousness as absolute being which constitutes the world within itself. "Husserl’s entire development becomes incomprehensible when this idealism is denied". According to de Boer, Franz Brentano convinced the young Husserl (...) that the aim of philosophy was to find a way of anchoring norms in the face of relativism and historicism. Brentano sought to use scientific methodology to found a descriptive psychology which could in turn form the basis for normative sciences. Like Brentano, Husserl was taken with the idea of developing a "rigorous science" of consciousness which would help provide rational a priori values in the face of the irrational world-views so prevalent in the first part of the century. Husserl’s turn away from his early empiricism and naturalism and his eventual adoption of transcendental idealism follows from his attempt to solve three problems in Brentano’s work: 1) the relation between things in themselves and the immanent intentional object; 2) the method for founding a priori truths; 3) the naturalistic attitude inherent in Brentano’s view that positivistic-genetic psychology and phenomenological psychology have equal value in the study of consciousness. Husserl solved the second problem with the notion of the intuition of essences. He solved the first and third problems with the discovery of transcendental idealism in 1908. De Boer maintains that the denial of the thing in itself, which is still presupposed in the naturalistic standpoint operating in Logische Untersuchungen, "is the most important step of all in Husserl’s development". The notion of the thing in itself is common to the naturalistic-dogmatic belief that on the one hand there is a realm of objects independent of consciousness and that on the other hand there is consciousness which has some experience of those objects. In LU, Husserl simply suspended the question of the relation of the thing in itself to consciousness because he still regarded the latter as a kind of island within the "real" world, to which natural science alone has direct access. Despite the fact that LU rejected the naturalizing of ideas, LU continued to regard consciousness in a naturalistic way. Only the "Copernican revolution" of transcendental idealism enabled Husserl to see that the foundation of all being is absolute mind or consciousness. Because consciousness "constitutes" reality in a creative and productive sense, there is no point in speaking of a "thing in itself." Husserl’s transcendental reduction does not deny "reality," but merely rejects the naturalistic tendency to absolutize it. (shrink)

The empirical data do not unequivocally support a consistent fixed capacity of four chunks. We propose an alternative account whereby capacity is limited by the precision of specifying the temporal and spatial context in which items appear, that similar psychophysical constraints limit number estimation, and that short term memory (STM) is continuous with long term memory (LTM).

Gary Becker and others have done important work to broaden the content of self interest, but have not departed from seeing rationality in terms of the exclusive pursuit of self-interest. One reason why committed behavior is important is that a person can have good reason to pursue objectives other than self interest maximization (no matter how broadly it is construed). Indeed, one can also follow rules of behavior that go beyond the pursuit of one's own goals, even if the goals (...) include non-self-interested concerns. By living in a society, one develops possible reasons for considering other people's goals as well, which takes one beyond an exclusive concentration on one's own goals, not to mention the single-minded pursuit of one's own self interest. The recognition of other people's goals may be a part of rational thought. If rational behavior may depart from the relentless pursuit of one's own goals, commitment has to be important in a theory of rationality. Furthermore, seeing the role of commitment in human behavior can have explanatory importance in allowing us to understand behavior patterns that are hard to fit into the narrow format of contemporary rational choice theory. Commitment is, thus, important both for practical reason and for causal explanation. Footnotes1 Paper presented at a Workshop on Rationality and Commitment at the University of St. Gallen, May 13–15, 2004. (shrink)

Abstract.The author examines the discipline of moral rights and in particular the need to embed them in a consequential system. He argues that the widely held opinion that independence from consequential evaluation is the right way of guaranteeing individual freedom is based on an inadequate appraisal of the role of moral rights in the social context. In this perspective he examines two specific cases: (1) elementary political and civil rights, and (2) the reproductive rights of women in the context of (...) poor countries with the problem of fast population growth. He argues that a coherent goal‐rights system which accommodates rights among others goals, can overcome the non‐consequential arguments and justify the force of moral rights fully within a consequentiality perspective. (shrink)

Theories on World origin and Human Nature.

In this paper I develop and present a unified account of information, misinformation, and disinformation and their interconnections. The unified account is rooted in Paul Grice’s notions of natural and non-natural meaning (in: Grice (ed) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 213–223, 1957) and a corresponding distinction between natural and non-natural information (Scarantino and Piccinini in Metaphilosophy 41(3):313–330, 2010). I argue that we can specify at least three specific kinds of non-natural information. Thus, as varieties (...) of non-natural information there is intentionally non-misleading information, unintentionally misleading information—i.e. misinformation—and intentionally misleading information—i.e. disinformation. By shifting the focus from the truth-values of content to the intention/intentionality and misleadingness/non-misleadingness of that content I obtain a unified account that makes room for the potential misleadingness of true content (true disinformation), the potential non-misleadingness of false content (irony), and everything in between. (shrink)